How to deal with a crash

[rhomer]

Well I got my clean up crew in, and I lost everything. I think that something that died early released a lot of ammonia in the tank, and a spiral down effect occured.
I'm so depressed. I'm having a hard time dealing with it. All I have left is my original neon goby, and a salley lightfoot. I lost every other snail and crab. Also I'm removing carcasses as soon as they pass on.
I'm on the wait and see plan for the tank. I performed an emergency 20% water change, and I plan on doing a 10% every few days for a couple of weeks. Problem is I ordered some more live rock before all this happend. I setup a 40gallon rubbermaid with an airstone and heater to cure the rock. Any ideas how long I should wait to start slowly adding this to the tank.
Should I just plan on the lr sitting in the temp tank for a while?
After the wipe out Ammonia .25, Nitrites 0, Nitrates 5-10, PH 8.2, Temp 78.
55lbs lr, 65lbs ls, wet/dry with buit in skimmer.
2 hagen 402 aquaclear power heads.
The skimmer was going nuts during the wipe out, after the 20% water change the skimmer pretty much returned to normal.
I did water tests in all areas of the water column with the idea the I might have dead zones in water movement, but everything tested the same.
I also have a neon goby that was fine before, during, and after the wipe out.
Man, what a miserable day. <img src="graemlins//dead.gif" border="0" alt="[dead]" /> <img src="graemlins//confused2.gif" border="0" alt="[confused2]" /> <img src="graemlins//confused.gif" border="0" alt="[confused]" />

 

[jacksonpt]

sorry to hear about your troubles. It probably won't make you feel any better... but I'm sure it's happened to most, if not all, of us at one time or another. Hang in there... your tank will get its feet back under it, and with some patience you'll have a terrific system running.

 

[rhomer]

Thanks for the post, It helps, because after days like yesterday, I just want to throw in the towel.

 

[salty guy]

Sorry to hear about the crash. Its true most of us have this happen at least once.
My suggestion is this. Add the LR to you Rubbermaid curing tank. Leave it there for several weeks with lights over it running 10 hours a day. Every so often move the LR around and use the power head to clean off the rock. After 4 weeks or so do a water test. If things are low you could add it to your main tank with confidence. That’s not to say that you will not have a small spike but your rock should have a good biological base and be filtering after 4 weeks.
Just remember the number one rule of Marine Fish keeping, Go slow, if ever in doubt wait 3 weeks then rethink!
Just keep up with weekly or biweekly water changes and things will get back going.

 

[rhomer]

How much lighting should I place over the tank?
I've got a single 20 watt 10k I could put over it, and/or 2 18 watt actinics.